


Post-Partum

by YellowWomanontheBrink



Series: Nurarihyon no Mago [3]
Category: Nurarihyon no Mago | Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 07:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13782885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowWomanontheBrink/pseuds/YellowWomanontheBrink
Summary: One year after marrying Nurarihyon, Yohime feels as if nothing has changed.





	Post-Partum

**Author's Note:**

> I used to write Nuramago oneshots all in one go and immediately post them, rather than letting them languish in drafts for 3 years like I tend to now. Wrote this as a character piece for a Nuramago/Inuyasha xover I'm outlining.

 

For as long as she had lived, Yohime had always dreamed of having a family. 

 

Though she was a princess, and a fair one at that, she liked to think, she had grown up in her shiro dreaming of bouncing, happy babies and dark, warm eyes, rosy pink cheeks and little feet and littler hands that would curl up around her fingers. She would play the shamisen and her child, boy or girl, it flipped between nebulous dreams, would watch, enraptured. 

 

She would write poetry and paint like her mother did, and the babe would be there, learning with clumsy brushstrokes. She would guide them with a patient and gentle hand. 

 

She would pray at the family altar and beg for children when her father was not around. Though she served him dutifully and honorably, as a good daughter should, at nights, she would long for the older days when she could use her blessing to her heart’s content. 

 

Before, it used to be peasants that would come to her, lay themselves at her feet and plaintively beseech her aid. Women would lay sickly children at her feet and she would heal them, and when they awoke, they would look at her with such awe. Desperate mothers would bring their sons. Noblewoman and poor were all equal beneath her hands; all children were pure.

 

And then, they stopped, and only rich, angry men, and haughty, angrier warriors came. Yohime longed for the days when mothers would come to her door. She was certain children never stopped getting sick. So did the mothers not come? To heal was her pleasure, her joy, her purpose. 

 

But then things changed, and she only ever saw children when the servants came by to dress her in her extravagant kimono. They were clean, but wan and thin, and ill-dressed; when Yohime glanced down at her own finery and admired her father’s finery, she wondered why the children and women who served her so faithfully were not similarly adorned and rewarded. 

 

“Daughter,” her door would open, and her father would step in, wide sinister smile baring sinister black teeth, “We have a guest here, ready for your blessing.”

 

A rich man would surely come in, perhaps wounded or bleeding, and she would lay her hands demurely above bare skin and heal. 

 

Though she felt joy when she healed, she also felt empty. Though Koremitsu valiantly protected her, she knew that outside the confines of her golden cage, people still grew sick and died— people she desperately wanted to heal.

 

Until she met Nurarihyon, she always, always thought of her ability as a blessing. When she leapt forward and healed him, she realized it was as much a compulsion as it was desire. Her heart thrummed in her chest, her blood rushed to her face with terror— here she was, healing the very monster Koreimitsu feared so much!

 

She could remember it vividly, like she could remember no other part of her years-long imprisonment. His skin was pale, but darker than hers, long tattooes winding down almost delicate wrists and slim hands for a man. His skin was warm, and warmed further because of the glowing barrier between her hands and his body. 

 

The moment could not have been more than a second, before she lifted dark eyes to meet pale yellow ones. The inhumanity of them scared her down to her bones. 

 

Then, he smiled, a cocky twist of interest and fascination, and Yohime did not fall in love, but she was lost all the same. 

 

In his eyes, curled closely to his body and the subject of his gaze, she could see adventure, and terror, and all the hurt and pain that resulted from fear and pandemonium. 

 

She yearned to heal it, and this ayakashi, this warrior, would show her where to find those who wanted to be healed, for sure. 

 

Older now, and wiser, were it not for that fact that she came to love him, she would have chastised her foolish younger self for seeking out pandemonium, when pandemonium sought her out. She should have deeply questioned why a noble lady would need a Kekain guard. 

 

Now, she had a family, the Nurarihyon had given her all that and more, but at what cost?

 

When she laid her head down to sleep, she saw Sadahime fleeing the fox, her cold body flopping to the floor irreverently. That was a wound she could not heal. That was death. 

 

Death had always been something inconsequential to her. Other people feared death. People laid their dying at the feet of Yohime-sama and asked her to defy death. In her naivete she was arrogant. Death fled her healing hands. 

 

Power over life on the brink of death— and still she desired more.

 

A rustle, a presence at the shoji door. She had sat listlessly in seiza for hours, reminiscing, no doubt—

 

Ah, yes. In came the Yuki-Onna, trailing behind her toddling son with bowed head and love shining brightly in red, frightening eyes like chips of blood stained ice. 

 

“Haha-ue!” Rihan cried, arms held up, face stubborn and insistent. Yohime knew he would not say anything more than that. She spread her arms in an invitation of intimacy, one which her son took without need for further encouragement.

She brushed her soft hands over a soft, round face, staring into yellow eyes like his father’s, running hands through thick black hair, like ink spilled over a white page. She could feel the Yuki-Onna’s eyes on her (hungry to claim her child as her own, her irrational heart feared).

 

“Thank you very much, Setsura-san,” she said, a clear dismissal. Rihan only had eyes for her when they were together. His gaze chased away thoughts of the recent past. She did not watch Yuki-Onna leave, but when the shoji doors slid shut, her hands glowed with her power, healing the ailments of an active childhood— scrapes and bruises, cuts and scratches, a lurking imbalance in his blood that foretold imminent sickness. She healed it all, and felt a little more alive, a  little more present.    

 

Rihan was unfazed; to him this was  routine, and he was unaware of the despair his mother felt when she was not free to heal.

 

Her eyelids fluttered as she zoned in and out of the past and present. Rihan’s warm little body in her lap was the only thing that kept her luxurious rooms from transforming into her father’s house. Her eyes flicked to the door at the sound of footsteps; would Koremitsu beg leave to enter, Nenekirimaru humbly tied in his sash, ready to draw and slay? Would Nurarihyon steal in through the window, envelop her in fear and steal her away? 

 

She felt cold. She felt like the lonely princess at the altar, begging for a child to heal, a child to spend her life with, a child to love and be loved by unconditionally. 

 

A child to write poetry with, a child to play shamisen with, a child to heal her the way she healed everyone else.  

 

Rihan turned in her lap and buried his face deep in the layers of her extravagant pink kimono. He smelled like sakura; the tree in the gardens probably bloomed out of season as it was wont to. When she ran her hand through his hair, he turned and stared up at her, face bright with a toothy smile, a full mouth of clean white baby teeth on display. It was impossible not to smile back. 

 

Why were her girlhood dreams still dreams?

 

“Rihan,” she said, “Go get Haha-ue’s shamisen.” 

 

She could heal all illnesses; this sadness she had would be healed as well.  

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment on your way out! Let me know if you like it or if you think it's trash or what. ;)


End file.
